It took me 14 months to finally able to keep my promise. The truth was, our dream house was already being bought the moment I found it. It was few months before I proposed to her. It was actually in a quite big town. But because of a sudden emergency plan I made, I hired a moving company to move the house to most unknown town I could find that still beautiful and had friendly neighborhood, town M.
After rejecting my resignation, my supervisor gave me a mission. It was a major and critical mission for the organization. If you ever heard about Goof war, well, let just said that I had a role to start that.
My mission was to make conflict between those two countries in Middle East. I made chaos in both countries and scapegoated them to the other until finally the stronger one invaded the weaker one. That incident was condemned by lots of countries, thus they declared war with the stronger country. To be honest, it was just an excuse. The real reason was because that country declined an agreement with the organization about the management of their most valuable commodity, Petroleum.
Anyway, when this country attacked the weaker one, I was in the attacked country. At least that what I reported to the organization an hour before the attack happened. Thus, when the attack happened, I was pronounced died. My 'body' was found in between bombing ruins and being took by the organization. Meanwhile, the real me was hiding in another country, thousands miles away. I took a face-off procedure and made a new solid identity as Thomas McCourtney.
I went back to my country after five months using my new identity as Thomas McCourtney. I sent Sophia a secret letter, telling her that I had a terrible accident and had to take plastic surgery. I told her to go to town M and waited me at the local airport at specific date.
Sophia was so shocked to see my appearance for the first time. I was not only changing my look, but even my teeth. I damaged my vocal cord on purpose to disguise my voice. Only after I told her some facts about her that were private and only known by me, she believed me.
We got married the next day at local church. I then brought her to our dream house. As I expected, she loved the house. She once showed me her drawing of her dream house. I remembered every detail of it. I told you before that I found a house similar to her dream house. Then I renovated it to be the exact house she was dreaming of.
I bought a land in the nicest neighborhood in town and finally brought the house here more than a year ago. Finally, I could also bring my dream woman here and lived with her in our dream house. When I thought that was the happiest day of my life, this happened..
"Honey.." A soft whisper went through my ear and brain, somehow was able to force me to awake.
I opened my eyes to see Sophia stood right beside me. Still with daze, I asked her, "What.. what's wrong, Pumpkin ?" My voice even was still hoarse.
She answered me with mysterious smile then handed me a strip of thick paper.
"What's this ?" I asked, reflexively received it.
"How many line do you see ?" She instead asked me back.
I forced my sight to focus on the paper. There were two lines on it. "Two.." I answered, still didn't understand.
She nodded with a wide smile.
"So.. ?" I asked her to explain further.
"You're going to be a father," she whispered and squeezed my lower arm a little.
Those words were able to wipe my sleepiness away. "Fa.. You're.. expecting ?" I asked in disbelief.
She nodded again.
I jumped out of my bed and hugged her, brought her off the floor and spun her. Sophia laughed heartily. I put her down after couple of round and kissed her hard on the lips.
"Are you happy ?" She asked me.
"Of course I am, Pumpkin," I confirmed her. Of course I'm happy. The news made my life perfect. Not only I could marry the woman of my dream, I would soon be a father. My live was complete.
For the next six months, my life had been so perfect. I got a job at local contractor that allowed me to work 9 to 5. We only built or renovated local houses in neighborhood. My salary was of course small. But I didn't mind.
Money had never been a problem for me because I had saved my money from my previous job as executor that was actually more than enough to cover our living cost in this town for the rest of our live. I needed the job to occupy my time.
Sophia herself had a job as an art teacher at local school. So on our daily basis, we got up at 7 AM, having breakfast together, then I drove her to her school before I went to my office. At noon, I would pick her up for lunch and drove her home before went back to my office. After five, I went straight home to meet her again. We spent our evening watching television, sometimes went to dinner invitation from neighbors, or playing bridge. On weekend we shopped for our and babies' needs. For some people that sounded boring, but for me, it was a live I had been dreaming of since I was teenager.
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"Are you going to have lunch at home today, Honey ?" Sophia asked me while handing my suitcase.
"Of course, Pumpkin," I replied, widened my smile to see her glimmered eyes to hear my answer. "I'm going now, Okay ?" I said my goodbye before kissing her forehead.
Sophia nodded then walked me to my car. It was her eight months of pregnancy. I asked her to get her pregnancy leave earlier. I also hired a woman to accompany her by day and helped Sophia took care of our house, to make sure she wouldn't be exhausted.
My office was only seven minutes from our home. My boss was the most diligent person I'd ever known. He always be the first person came to the office. Just like that morning. It was only 8:30 AM when I arrived at my office and I already saw his car was parked at its usual slot.
After putting my suitcase on my desk, I went to my boss' office. We would have meeting at 9 AM there. But since I had arrived, I thought it was better to start the meeting now.
"Mr. Carlson," I knocked on his door. "Can I come in ?"
Weird, he didn't answer. I knocked for a couple more times before twisting the door knob. It was unlocked. I opened the door wider. My body went cold to see what was in front of me.
Mr. Carlson was lied on the floor. His right hand grabbing his left chest. His mouth was opened and eyes were wincing.
I might have thought Mr. Carlson was dead because of a heart attack, just like what the police said based on the autopsy's result few hours later, if only I didn't see a note on a piece of paper lied beside Mr. Carlson's head. "Hello, Iggy. We're glad you're alive. Unlike this poor man"